


Dive and Fly

by ImogenSmiley



Series: Reigisa [26]
Category: Free!
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Catching Up, Chance Meeting, Coming Back Together, Encouragement, Established Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei, Established Relationship, Free! Dive to the Future, HYPE, M/M, Mutual Support, National competition, Nationals, Nerves, New Friends, New Rivals, Reunions, chance reunion, coming together, performance anxiety, remembering, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21935551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImogenSmiley/pseuds/ImogenSmiley
Summary: A chance encounter at Nationals.
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei
Series: Reigisa [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531475
Kudos: 4





	Dive and Fly

Nationals was an anxiety explosion waiting to happen. The team had travelled all of the way to Tokyo just to support their two third years; Nagisa and Rei as they swam for a title. There would be a series of heats and then the final, and if you qualified for the final, you’d get a participation medal with your place on it, regardless of how you did. And if you came in the top three, you’d get a trophy too. But you needed to come first or second to make it, depending on times and averages.

While Nagisa was good with dealing with pressure and heightened expectations, Rei was a trembling mass of anxiety, not that he wanted his teammates to know. Of course Nagisa-kun and Gou-san saw through the façade, but they weren’t going to give him up. Especially when there were more pressing matters to deal with.

All Rei knew was that he was in desperate need of some air. He excused himself at the end of another backstroke heat. He took hold of his boyfriend’s hands and kissed his knuckles. Nagisa, in turn did the same thing back. They wouldn’t reunite until they’d both competed and that meant that any farewells and good lucks needed to be brief, and, unfortunately for them, public.

Rei was never one to make a scene, and thus, all of his movements had been quick and easy, smooth and charming. He needn’t attract any attention to the fact he and his boyfriend were exchanging kisses through their hands, which they held in a vice-grip. Neither wanted to let go, but they knew they had to. If they wanted to excel in the competition, Nagisa knew he had to release his boyfriend to deal with his anxiety in the only way someone who had dealt with it for as long as he had would know how to do.

Rei headed outside, counting how long he inhaled and exhaled from, doing his best to breathe from his diaphragm. His inhaler and one of Nagisa’s fidget cubes were in his pockets. He kept allowing his violet gaze to flicker to his watch. He was running short of time, he needed to calm down. He propped himself up against a wall and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing, before allowing his eyes to open. In turn, he began to scan his surroundings in search of sensory stimuli to ground him; what could he see, hear, what could he reach for and touch. Not taste, or smell though, he didn’t want to make himself sick.

After a few minutes he moved away from the wall. He was grounded and almost composed enough to return into the realm of chlorine and anxiety, when he crossed paths with a lean redheaded boy. Their bodies nearly collided as they passed each other, the boy wearing black calling out a “woah” as he brushed past Rei. For a moment violet eyes met amethyst.

They paused, both turning over their shoulders, looking to see if the other had paused too.

“Wait-” the redhead said

“Wait aren’t you!” Rei gasped

“Aren’t you!”

Both boys fell silent, eyes flooding with recognition. The boy in front of Rei was the same kid who he had happened upon in the library all those years ago. The one he had thought of back when he was still learning to swim during his first year of high school. He’d grown, but still kept his tufty hair cropped short. His eyes shone with a fire that Rei now recognised in the ambitious. He saw it in almost everyone he knew around his age, the people who knew, deep down, what they wanted. A trait he’d seen in Rin Matsuoka and his captain, Seijuro Mikoshiba back in his first year, and later in Haruka-senpai and even, sometimes, in Makoto-senpai.

The boys were quiet for a moment, drinking one another in. It had been far too long, five years if not more since their brief meeting, but it had been enough to, clearly, leave an impression.

“You still wear those red glasses?”

“Y-yeah. Wait, if you’re here…does that mean you’re still swimming. But you’re in street clothes so… are you cheering on a friend?” Rei asked, his cheeks flushed, was he making a fool of himself in front of the boy he thought of so often when he was learning himself.

“Yeah I’m cheering on some of the guys I went to school with. I’m in college now, and yep, I’m still swimming”

“I’m in the upcoming butterfly race.”

“Wow! That’s amazing! I didn’t even make it to Nationals last year! Well, I guess that’s why you look so nervous, huh?”

“Tha-That’s not!”

“Well, there’s all kinds of mental training you can do,” he teased, grinning, “But don’t overthink it that much, victory is mostly just about luck on the day! You’ve just got to make it or break it!”

“But I don’t want to break-”

“It’s just a phrase, and when it comes to luck, you’ve got the best of it. After all, we managed to see each other again after all those years!”

“Yeah maybe you’re right.”

“No maybe about it! Just have faith and go for it!” the redhead gave Rei a thumbs up, his amethyst eyes glittering, “Got it?”

“Yeah!”

Rei hadn’t realised how much he needed that, the fresh perspective that came from speaking to that boy, not a child anymore. He was in college now, and if he was swimming still, maybe he’d tried for the All-Japan Invitational like Haruka-senpai and Rin-san? Who knew.

But that didn’t matter, what mattered was that he was right, the redhead whose name he still didn’t have was right: it was all about luck and he really did just have to make his own luck, and if the odds of the universe had handed them a reunion like that then maybe, just maybe, he and Nagisa could achieve what they wanted to. Maybe they could claw their ways into the finals.

Maybe he just needed to take a leap of faith and trust himself to fly above the rest. That was never something he’d considered outside of academia. But if any time was one to believe in himself, now was one. He had maybe twenty minutes before he had to be on the podium and he needed to warm up.

The National Stage was waiting for him.


End file.
